WHALES SWIM NAKED

A boy witnesses the follies of love in Gethers’ debut coming-of-age novel.

Henry’s mother, Lillian, is unprepared for his premature birth after just seven months of pregnancy. Indeed, she wasn’t prepared for being pregnant in the first place: “Birth control wasn’t a consideration because Lillian had drunk two Mountain Dews, smoked a joint and downed a cap full of bleach as soon as they were finished.” Lillian dies, suddenly and unexpectedly,while Henry is still in the hospital, which is where his father, Jack, meets pediatric nurse Vivienne Holt. They quickly move in together, and she’s left to watch young Henry after Jack, a military man, is arrested for sleeping with the 16-year-old niece of his commanding officer. Henry’s philandering, storytelling father becomes a model for the boy’s sense of manhood, and Vivienne and Peggy, who eventually becomes a member of the family, inform his conception of womanhood. The family also confronts addiction and mental illness—a combustive mix that sets Henry up for a tumultuous life. Gethers’ prose is sharp and dry, as when he describes the houses in Vivienne’s neighborhood: “No two windows were alike. No two doors….Foundations of Texas homes never settled, shifting as often as southern politicians’ morality.” The novel is a bit overlong, but its episodic structure effectively chronicles the tangled relationships of Henry’s parents and, eventually, the protagonist’s own. The author’s ability to craft dynamic, slippery characters and keep a firm grip on them, like an angler with a wriggling fish, is the book’s greatest strength. He also has a talent for keeping readers invested in what happens to his various players.

An often immersive work about the various ways that people find and lose one another.